Cause and Effect
by Uniasus
Summary: Cause: Mission City Effect: Foil hats are a hit accessory, the city is thought to be on a permanent high, and a lot of people want to build robots. Yup, that sounds like NEST.


**Disclaimer: ** Transformers and its associated characters belong to a variety of people/companies including but not limited to Hasbro, IDW, and Michael Bay's peeps. I do however own the plot and ideas contained in the story you're about to read.

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Cause and Effect

_By Uniasus_

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There were several trends easily spotted in the Mission City area after the battle that took place there in 2007.

The largest one was easily that people moved out rather quickly. The housing market in the area plummeted as many homes went up for sale, apartments were emptied overnight, and businesses moved to Phoenix or San Diego – those that didn't go bankrupt that is. The city was almost as empty as a closed GM plant for awhile.

And that's when the conspiracists moved in. Many who stayed had thrown up a fuss about government cover-ups and secret plots. After all, seeing a giant droid death match wasn't something one could easily forget. It was easy to convince the rest of the country that stories from the natives were strange concoctions from minds effected by a hallucinogenic drug, so the stories of cars transforming were easily brushed aside within a week. The conspiracy blogs and websites that went up were taken with a whole pinch of salt. But of course, the hard-core conspiracy theorists would eventually show up. And with houses so cheap and landlords practically giving leases away, many stayed. Didn't help that area 51 was relatively close by either. Somehow it all morphed into a tourist thing, to visit for a weekend and go on a crazy tour that followed a blow by blow of an imaginary battle. There was even a whole museum dedicated to cars and other vehicles that had gotten trashed in 2007. It was pretty hard to explain how most of the damage occurred, since the government said there was no battle, but nothing was said and it was all brushed to the side like many other stories that flowed from the city.

But hey, all the money from tourism was slowly allowing Mission City to regain its feet and reconstruct buildings. Except of course, those featured on the tours.

A strange art movement had started too. Just like there were bears in Berlin and cows in Chicago, Mission City had painted cars. Some were stationary in permanent parking spots, others were personal vehicles seen driving around (those in the decal industry were rolling in cash), and still more appeared as murals on the side of buildings. Many of the murals however featured transformed robots, all modeled after whom had been seen fighting in the city.

The one that bothered everyone at N.E.S.T. was on the corner of Allen and DiCola; it depicted Megatron ripping Jazz in half.

Of course the residents of Mission City had no idea who the good guys were and who the bad ones were, and since the government was saying all that came from here was rubbish from a bunch of high people, they couldn't request the city to take down the painting. Whenever anyone from N.E.S.T. visited the city all effort was made to avoid that corner.

Visits to Mission City were anything but rare, happening every summer, because two other trends had developed in the wake of Mission City years down the road when the children present at the time grew older. The Mission City area was one of the highest feeders to both the military (heavy on the Air Force, to Epps's delight) and robotic engineering.

In other words, it was ground zero to find N.E.S.T. recruits.

Every year the military hosted a summer program for those aged 17 to 22. An odd selection sure, but it was also the most likely age group to sign up and hey, young adults got bored on summer break too. The 'camp' took session over a two month period and usually had a robotic theme; it varied depending on N.E.S.T.'s needs. Last year it had specialized in signal analysis because Maggie kept on huffing about a lack of good help. Most participants were interested in joining the military, and about forty percent of N.E.S.T's rookies over the last seven years had come from the program.

"What's this?" Will asked as Sam handed him a file. "Usually you don't have anyone interesting for me to look at until at least two weeks into the program. It's only day three."

Sam, being a ever young nigh-immortal Prime (please don't ask, Will wasn't sure himself how it happened, only that it did and involved a whole lot of angst on Sam's part and other issues the older man wasn't fully clear on), registered as a participant every summer to sniff out the most likely candidates.

"Sophia Tally, nickname Sophie. Age 18 and scheduled to enter MIT come Fall," the lieutenant colonel read, "From Tranquility."

Sam didn't react to the raised eyebrow the other man sent his way, just crossed his arms and leaned against the wall opposite.

"What makes Sophie so special?"

"Every bot she's built, ever, has the same voice. Or at least narrating the videos she has of the robots she's built. They're all aquatic."

"So?"

"They all sound like Ironhide."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Huh," Will leaned back in his chair. "You don't think it's a coincidence do you?"

Sam shook his head. "I asked if that was her dad's voice but she said it wasn't. When she was younger, a twenty-foot alien crawled out of her pool apparently. She asked it if it was the tooth fairy." The brunette snorted, "Apparently she was also here during Mission City, her mom had something to do in the city. There was a black robot and she became convinced they were one and the same."

"You know, Ironhide was rather interested in the tooth fairy when Annabell lost her first tooth."

There was a moment of silence before they both grinned at each other.

"I'll get the false teeth if you get a large enough set of wings."

"Deal."

The best thing about N.E.S.T. recruits from the Mission City Summer Program? Most of them weren't freaked out by alien robots because they had all ready met them.

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A/N:** And thus is the result of watching the first movie. Again. I swear, every time I watch that I learn something new. Such as, did you know Simmons in religious? O.o And I'm trying to figure out just why Frenzy can't seem to surf the net himself. And Jazz looks like Frank from Donnie Darko with his battle mask down. That one really weirded me out. But Mikaela confuses me. I can't tell if she grows in the movie, or just reveals that how she acts at the beginning is a front because she does have a history of self sacrificing behavior...sorta :/

Also, not once did I hear anyone refer to Bumblebee as 'Bee'. So while I admit it's an appropriate nickname, where did it come from? (cotton eyed joe! sorry sorry, middle school dance songs are haunting me today)

I couldn't find a way to insert N.E.S.T's fav mural, so for those you interested, its of a super skinny Ratchet sending a ray of hearts towards a super skinny injured Bumblebee with "The Power of Love" in comic style popping letters at the top. XD Our favorite medic refuses to go near it.

Reviews are lovely and will be treated with care, complete with back massages. Please make note of what other services you would like your reviews to receive. Except mud baths. There was a mess-up with the shipment and instead of dirt we got lemonade power. No idea of what we're doing to do with a truck load of that.


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